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Colorado Won't Invest in Marijuana, but It Could Still Make Bank on Pot DUIs

Efforts to legitimize Colorado's medical marijuana industry took another blow yesterday after state lawmakers rejected a measure that would have made dispensary funding more transparent. Representative Tom Massey, a Republican from Poncha Springs, had proposed the creation of state-sanctioned investment funds as a way to mandate that investors pass clear criminal background checks, as proponents sought a way to keep mafia-like groups from funding medical pot (Colorado Independent). But a bipartisan group of legislators disapproved, arguing that the funds would be tantamount to Colorado handling investments in a product that violates federal law, and that FDIC-insured banks won't accept marijuana money (Associated Press).

The bill was part of a flurry of proposed medical marijuana regulations moving through the state Capitol. One of them—how the state will handle so-called marijuana DUIs—has been postponed another week, just as Westword's pot critic received the results of a blood test he took to gauge the amount of THC in his system. He isn't impressed with the outcome, which didn't measure how the THC—the active ingredient in marijuana, which would be measured in issuing the pot DUIs—affected him at the time of the original test. The Colorado State Patrol, however, has told him that if the current bill passes, people suspected of marijuana DUI could sit in jail as long as 21 days waiting on test results if they can't bond out.